Be Different or be dead

August 31, 2019

5 proven ways to improve the call center experience

Call centers have become a routine thing these days. Television not working? Call the customer care number. Your order is delayed? Call the customer service people. These are just a couple of examples of our frequent encounters with call centers.

Having said that, it does not mean everyone has a good experience while interacting with the customer service representatives.

The one thing you must know to ace the call center experience is the ease of use.

What do we mean by lease of use”?

The purpose of any call center is either provide support or do sales. In both cases, it is important that the call center software that the business is using makes it easy - a) for customers to reach them, and b) for the agents to support the customers.

Ways to improve the call center experience

Simple IVR

In simple terms, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is used for inbound calls. A pre-recorded menu is played for the caller to choose the relevant option. Now, the idea is to keep the options limited to reduce confusion and faster resolution of the customer’s problem.

Additionally, having multi-level IVR is good as it allows the caller to choose an option specific to their query. Having said that, care must be taken that too many levels are not there as that wastes the caller’s time and tests their patience.

Intelligent routing

Do not make the caller wait for answers. The longer the caller waits, poorer the experience and less chance that they will return to your brand. Moreover, if the caller is connected to the right agent at the first time itself, it has two-fold advantage - the customer is happy and the agent is productive.

Let us understand this with an example. Jack calls MoneyLending Bank with credit card lost complaint. He goes through the IVR and is connected to an agent. Once Jack explains his problem, the agent puts his call on hold as it needs to be routed to a different department.
This spoils the experience of the customer and wastes the agent’s time. Thus, having good routing algorithm in place will direct the call to the right department in the first attempt itself and make things smooth.

Single screen for all activities

Call center agents have a lot on their plate on a daily basis. They do not need more chaos due to incomplete customer information which leads to angry interactions or having to toggle between multiple tabs and windows.

Having a unified desktop which provides the agents with a holistic view of the customer puts them in a much better position to answer customer queries faster and with satisfaction. Moreover, with a single screen interface, the agents can perform all their activities there itself, without having to switch multiple tabs. This further improves the response time and allows the agents to multitask as well.

Creating a knowledge hub

If the agents have all the information ready to go, it makes their life and job a lot easier. A knowledge base is a repository of all important documents, articles and FAQs will allow the agents to quickly search for the required information and answer the customer queries.

For instance, a customer calls to inquire about insurance plans - what’s included, any add-ons, etc. For an agent, who handles hundreds of calls in a day, it becomes difficult to remember the details of all the plans. With a knowledge base system, the agents can simply search the query using certain keywords and get relevant content.

Encouraging collaboration

Another way of making things easy for faster resolution of a customer issue is to encourage other agents and even the supervisor to help each other to work as a team.

Understanding this with an example, if a caller asks a question which is out of the agent’s purview, the agent can have a conference call with the customer and her/his supervisor. Doing this will ensure that the customer’s problem is addressed and resolved in that call itself rather than making them wait or delaying the problem.

Concluding thoughts

Call centers are one of the easiest and most common ways through which the customers reach out to companies. By implementing the above options, the brands can look to significantly improve call center experience for both, the agents and the customers.

A call center software provider which understands the business requirements and customizes the solution accordingly is what one should look for.

Some of the must-have features to excel at delivering exceptional customer support is integrating the right call center functionality as discussed here.

With the right integration, any organization can make use of any existing system in addition to deploying any new CRM or other third-party systems. After all, it all comes down to simplifying things for better call center operations and the customer service experience.

— Shambhavi Sinha is a technical blogger & product marketer and has been writing for 3 years. She is into technology and writes tech-based stuff. Her aim is to provide knowledge to users by sharing tips and tricks about new technologies, DIY, and knowledge about call center software.

• Posted 8.31.19 at 04:40 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

August 26, 2019

How a winning customer service strategy can be simple to build

Source: Pexels

How a winning customer service strategy can be simple to build.

It’s all very well to say that you intend to compete and win in the marketplace by providing unmatched customer service, but exactly what does it mean?

How can you make this vision more than merely an aspiration?

What does it look like when your business plan’s strategic intent is being successfully executed in the field?

What behaviors do you witness? What customer feedback do you get? What service quality metrics are relevant?

The service strategy

Your service strategy is the call to action for how you intend to deliver the ultimate in serving customers; without a service strategy you won’t have the execution elements in place to see your vision become reality and you’ll be like many other organizations that want to dazzle their customers but fall short of the mark because they can’t execute.

The service strategy is intended to breathe life into your service vision by specifying the exact deliverables you intend to deliver to customers and the results you expect.

It is the promise, if you will, you intend to deliver to the marketplace that makes you unique in the crows of organizations all wanting to be the service Czar.

Lack of a service strategy clouds the issue. People are not clear on how to behave, on the results expected and on the measurements that are relevant.

Your service strategy should reflect two components:

#1. Core service

Core service is the basic good or service you produce, without which your business doesn’t exist. Core service is WHAT a person GETS when they do business with you.
— In the financial business it’s an investment plan that protects the client’s assets and grows them according to their personal lifestyle goals;
— In telecom, it’s a video channel that functions with no intermittent breaks in transmission;
— In the air travel space it’s delivering passengers and their luggage safe and when they were promised;
— For the movers of households, it’s delivering someone’s personal belongings to their destination on time, on budget without breaking anything.

People expect your core service to be provided flawlessly every time they engage with you and they don’t give you plaudits when you do. For example, I’ve never heard anyone say “WOW! it’s absolutely amazing that you delivered my furniture from Toronto to Vancouver without anything being broken!” 

But the converse is also true. If an organization can’t deliver its core service consistently, they are criticized and the word is spread about how bad their service is.

#2. The service experience

The second component of a service strategy is the service experience they enjoy when they engage with you…. HOW they FEEL when they do business with you; how they FEEL when they are receiving your core service.
— When buying online, is it easy to navigate the pages to find what you want? Is there a chat function that allows you to ask questions rather than have to browse the FAQ page?
— When ordering internet service, how long do you have to wait before you get a call center rep?
— Does your financial analyst make themselves available when you need to see them? Are they respectful of your needs and wants?

Unlike core service, providing a delightful service experience gets you plaudits. People remember what you did for them and they tell others how great you are. AND they stay loyal for as long as the same service experience is created for them.

Both core service and the service experience must be addressed in your service strategy. Here’s and example of a service strategy my team developed for a business organization I lead:

“We are easy to do business with. We care.
We provide and support innovative quality solutions.
We make promises and always keep them. If we fall short of our strategy, RECOVERY will be our #1 priority”

Core service elements are covered — solutions are provided (not products); promises are kept.

The service experience is addressed — a caring attitude is expected; recovery is invoked when a mistake is made; systems and processes are created to make it easy for people to transact business.

Once your service strategy has been articulated its a great idea to workshop it with all teams in the organization to define what each function must do to play their part.

For example, what does the strategy mean to sales? In the above case, sales must focus on developing solutions for customers; flogging products is verboten. And relationship building skills are required with a caring attitude. Do the same for every part of the organization so that everyone is working together toward the common service goal.

And build the performance expectations into everyone’s annual performance plan to ensure it’s given the priority it deserves.

If you pay attention to these tactics you will see your service vision come to life!

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 8.26.19 at 12:24 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

August 5, 2019

Why brilliant customer service cannot have stupid rules and policies

Source: Unsplash

Why brilliant customer service cannot have stupid rules and policies.

One of the most effective ways to create memories for your customers and earn their loyalty is to break your own rules to favour them when it makes absolute sense to do so. This opportunity normally arises when your rules clash with what the customer wants; they simply don’t want to play by your rules.

Stupid rules

‘Stupid rules’, are given birth usually by some control freak in the organization with a nonsensical purist view that a customer should behave in a certain way that serves the organizations purpose with little regard for whether or not a customer will react favourably to getting treated in the prescribed manner.

One of my favorite dumb rule stories took place at The Mirage Hotel Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. There is a wonderful deli in the casino that serves the best rueben sandwiches ever but the customer friendliness of their policies sucks.

My wife and I show up late one night and asked the hostess for a booth and were told flatly that our request was not possible since it was their policy to offer booths only for parties of 6 or more.
I get that management wanted to maximize the check value from these specific seats, but in this case the store was empty save my wife and me! Maximizing revenue beyond the two of us was an impossibility!

In my experience the fathers and mothers of dumb rules can be found in staff type jobs whose role is to develop and implement operating procedures to govern, among other things, customer transactions. In these circumstances the objective is to meet internal requirements like efficiency and productivity rather than ensuring rules enhanced the customer experience.

And, unfortunately where customers are not considered the prime target for the rule or policy they become collateral damage in the rule’s application; they are mistreated and tell hundreds of other people how crummy the organization’s service is.

But there is a way to both have your cake and eat it to. You can both realize efficiency gains by applying the rule to the masses and bending or breaking the rule for those few customers who don’t accept it and push back on you.

The apply-the-rule scenario gets you the productivity gains you want from the majority of your customers who are ok with it; the bend-or-break scenario avoids the pain of an unpleasant customer encounter and impresses them and makes them more loyal to your organization.

When loyalty suffers

You’re in loyalty do-do when apply-the-rule is winning. If your frontline employees spend a great deal of their time enforcing the rules, policies and procedures of your organization and, as a result, are constantly saying ‘no’ to your customers nothing good comes of it — loyalty is threatened — and employee engagement is in jeopardy because being a rule enforcer is not a rewarding role to play in any job.

Job frustration can eventually lead to employees finding another organization where day to day existence isn’t so painful.

Employees can’t create delightful moments for customers when they are constantly trying to get someone to tow the line on something they don’t agree with — empower your frontline to ‘say yes’.

I’m not suggesting that a frontline person should break a rule that would violate the law, but they should have permission to bend-or-break an internal policy that has no significant negative long term consequences for the organization.

Test your policies and trust your frontline

Rules and policies impact people differently; each person will react to an enforce-the-rule encounter in a different way: some will be ok with having to comply with the rule while others will go postal.

One way to anticipate how your customers will likely respond to one of your rules is to ask them before it is implemented. Unfortunately I’ve never witnessed a process where detailed due diligence is done to brainstorm the negative reactions that customers may have to a particular rule or policy that is being considered, but there should be.

Given that customers are likely to respond to a rule in ways we never imagined, the only solution (if you want to protect and grow customer loyalty) is empower your frontline people to bend one of your standardized rules, policies or procedures when the customer needs a different treatment; when their needs are quite reasonable but out-of-bounds to what the policy manual says.

To those who think that empowering frontline folks will result in them giving away the shop, stop worrying. They won’t.

In my experience, empowering them to use their judgment and determine when and how a rule should be bent-or-broken actually produces a greater degree of rule enforcement as they typically reserve flexible treatment for those customers who truly need it. Once given the latitude to apply flexibility to policy enforcement, they actually take a more active role in advocating the company’s position behind the policy.

When frontline people are allowed to control the bend-or-break process, the organization is rewarded by a customer who is blown away by how they are being treated and how humane the organization is. And they tell others how truly great you are.

Dumb Rules Committees

How do you go about identifying and killing these ugly loyalty threateners?

Go ask your frontline what dumb rules they are constantly having to deal with. They know them but do you have the courage to listen and do something about them?

I created dumb rules committees in the operations areas of my organization and appointed a dumb rules leader for each committee whose responsibility it was to seek out and destroy (or otherwise modify) rules that made no sense to customers and drove them crazy.

Fun was had by all over this concept. Everyone, particularly the frontline, welcomed this initiative; they all were passionate about the purpose; we made real progress.

We had contests among the committees to see who could come up with the most dumb rules to kill, and we celebrated the winners. The committees were expected to not only identify rules, policies and procedures that annoyed customers, they were also charged with the responsibility of eradicating them by taking whatever action was necessary to get it done.

My role and that of my senior leaders was to remove any roadblocks preventing the committees from getting a rule dealt with.

At least make stupidity customer friendly

Certain rules are required by law or regulatory governance.
First of all do your due diligence to make sure that the claim is real and not the posturing of a champion who doesn’t want their rule or policy removed. If the rule is necessary, however, then at least look for ways to make it customer friendly.

And reconsider how the rule is enforced with a customer; what communications strategy is used. Is it friendly and helpful or is it demanding and intimidating?
Take the time to design the customer communications content to minimize an adverse reaction; it’s not always possible but it is worth considered doing nevertheless.

If you are able to expunge even 20% of the dumb rules you have in your organization, your customers will reward you with their loyalty and your reputation will soon attract new customers as well.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 8.5.19 at 09:07 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

February 18, 2019

5 effective ways to make a culture of personalized customer service

Source: Unsplash

Many organizations have in their business plan the goal of providing intimate customer experiences; personalized service tuned in to what THAT specific customer wants at THAT specific time.

The essence of the plan is to deliver memorable — WOW! — experiences that will delight customers and enhance their loyalty. It’s the warm caring treatment intended to make the customer’s skin all goose-bumpy.

The logic behind the personalization theme is that while providing a standard level of service to everyone will satisfy some people, it won’t appeal to all because everyone has slightly different needs.

But if service is individualized to reflect the unique characteristics of each customer, mass moments of delight can be created and customer loyalty will increase.

Personalized service is impossible

The reality is, however, personalized service is an impossible dream; it cannot be delivered because of ‘the noise’ that surrounds service delivery in every organization.

The noise is represented by all of the activities going on in an organization; they constitute the context within which personalization must be practised.

The noise consists of:
— repair and service delivery activity.
— advertising messages.
— ridiculously long call center hold times.
— social media conversations.
— customer complaints.
— internal cost management concerns.
— new leadership directives.
— product quality issues.
— differing business unit priorities.
— supply challenges.

There is too much noise

With this confluence of activity happening every moment of every day, is it any wonder that the art of creating a memorable personal experience for a customer gets lost?

Personalized service experiences don’t stand a chance when there is this cloud of activity in conflict with this purpose:
— customers wait 45 minutes to get a call center rep who does their best to provide caring service buts it’s ruined by the noise of the wait;
— customers are told their individual needs are important but the product breaks down after it has been used only a few times;
— employees are told that responding to each customer is the strategy yet service costs are cut to meet quarterly financial targets and there are insufficient numbers of employees to serve customers;
— social media conversations are replete with service criticism at the same time as the organization declares its intent to provide stellar personal service;
— sales solutions can’t be provided because of supply chain problems;
— a sensitive engagement with a service rep is followed by a disastrous installation that requires multiple attempts to get it right;
— a special deal is provided to a customer but the bill is sent out with errors.

All of these noise factors work in unison to discredit the personal service mantra, it’s not a believable proposition in the face of proof points that counter and undermine it.

A holistic view is required

Polite customer service reps and amazing fulfillment self serving technology won’t bring personalization to life; it’s a bigger challenge than that.

All the currency built up by a rep handing the customer in an amazing way is quickly lost, for example, when the product ordered is lost or the promised delivery date is missed.

And the caring attitude of a rep doesn’t really count for much when the customer has been sitting in the call queue for the better part of an hour.

To really provide a personal service experience requires a holistic view of all service components operating across the organization. They must all work efficiently on their own and work together in harmony to serve the same purpose.

If one link in the service chain breaks down personal service is a non starter.

In the long term, the culture of an organization must be morphed to delivering the personal service experience.
Leadership must declare it to be the prime objective of the organization; a strategy must be put in place to make it happen.

These 5 actions should drive cultural change to personalization

▪️Define the operations functions that the customer views as key in fulfilling the personal service promise and make sure they operate with maximum efficiency and minimal errors. If call center wait times is critical to them, apply resources to avoid their displeasure when the reach a rep.

▪️Insource the functions that drive the personal experience, outsource only those that have no influence on it.

▪️Re-vector your performance management process to prioritize those deliverables and behaviours that are key to the personal service mission; pay handsomely when someone is a champion of the cause.

▪️Set measurable objectives for the key operations processes that control how the customer feels about the way they are treated and hold management accountable to achieve them. If, for example, keeping promises for product delivery is important, set targets and measure performance.

▪️Ask the customer “Did you enjoy your personal service experience with us?” as the key lead question to monitor if the new culture is making way.
You will quickly find out if customers found their experience with you personal at all and what your organization needs to do to make it more memorable.

A personal service experience equals the sum of the experiences a customer has with each touch point they engage with in your organization.

It’s not about just the service rep, delivery technician, receptionist, repair person, website, advertising message and bill individually.

It’s about all of them, and unless they all work together in the spirit of personalization you can forget about the ideal and claim something else as your end game.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 2.18.19 at 04:38 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink